It’s night again. We’re all awake, sitting, dressed up and clean, on the couch. The dogs are sitting up, facing the front door. Working. Mommy and Daddo still have knives. Are you hungry? Daddo asks me. No, I say. I lean back into the couch. I close my eyes. When I open them, Mommy is at the kitchen counter and me and Daddo are at the table. I sit up fast. You fell asle ep, Daddo says. Okay. Wow. You feel rested now? I don’t know. You might not feel rested for twenty years, Mommy says. That’s probably what we all have to look forward to. The TV isn’t on and the house is quiet. There’s no bowl or food in front of me, so I lay my head down again. Just for a second. But when I wake up... Mommy? I’m still at the kitchen table, but Mommy and Daddo are standing in the middle of the living room, looking up at the ceiling. They both hold knives. I get down from my chair. Bela, Mommy says. She doesn’t look at me. Do not leave this room right now, she says. I look up the hall and I see Kami and Kamael are looking up the stairs. Is the house creaking? I ask. Mommy and Daddo don’t answer. Either Kami or Kamael growls. Mommy st eps closer to the entrance to the living room. She waves for Daddo to do the same. They’re together, looking up the hall. Okay, Mommy says. She breathes de ep.
It’s upstairs, she says. We know it is. I don’t think there’s any question about it, Daddo says, quiet. Then: What about Bela? We sure don’t leave her down here, Mommy says. We bring her up with us... Yes, Mommy says. Bela? What? This might be scary now. This might be a lot to take in. But we need you to come with us. Stay within sight of us. But don’t get too close. Understand? No. I start to cry a little. Bela, Mommy says. Daddo is still looking down the hall. His knife is up like he’s going to use it. Mommy and Daddo can’t be Mommy and Daddo right now, Mommy says. We need to be something we’ve never been before. Something outside our nature. Outside our nature, Daddo r epeats. Like they’re building themselves up. Like they have to. I imagine the knives going into Other Mommy’s face. I don’t want to go upstairs, I say. Is she a friend? Wasn’t she once? That’s okay, Mommy says. We’re all going to do something we don’t want to do now. Daddo st eps into the hall. The dogs growl, quietly, looking up the stairs. Now you, Mommy says to me. I st ep into the hall behind Daddo, and Mommy comes in after me. We walk slow. We pass the bathroom. We pause at the bottom of the stairs. Then Daddo starts climbing without talking about it. I start to follow, but Mommy holds me back. She goes first. She holds my hand behind her. Holds me close to her. She looks back over my head, then ahead again. We get to the top of the stairs like this. The storage closet, Mommy says. It’s a closet at the end of the hall where we ke ep a vacuum. Daddo once called it a “second pantry,” but there’s no food in there. A person can fit in there.
Daddo once hid there when we played hide-and-seek. Mommy, I say. But Mommy puts her hand over my mouth. We ke ep walking. All dressed up, all clean. They hold their knives. Stop here, Bela, Mommy says. The thin door is open a little, and Daddo gets to it first. He looks to Mommy before he reaches into the darkness and tries to find the light switch. I hear him flip the switch, but no light comes on. Daddo pulls his hand from the room. He looks back to Mommy. She st eps to the door. Puts her mouth near the darkness. Says, Leave our child alone. Daddo’s hand is shaking. The knife is shaking. This is your last chance to leave our child alone, Mommy says. She pushes the door open. The smell comes out of the second pantry. Other Mommy is in the second pantry. Daddo starts to make a sound I’ve never heard him make before. Like he’s about to do something he needs to be brave to do. No matter what happens now, Bela, Mommy says. Do not run. Daddo is yelling to be brave and Mommy starts yelling to be brave and I know they’re going to run into the second pantry, I know they’re going to try to kill Other Mommy. They raise their knives. And Other Mommy says, Hello, and who are you? And the dogs start barking like crazy downstairs. Mommy is yelling to do it and Daddo is yelling to do it and the dogs are barking and Mommy starts to move toward the darkness of the second pantry. Do you like me better in here? Other Mommy says. I can’t see her. But I smell her. And I can imagine her face when she talks. Mommy and Daddo st ep closer to the second pantry. Bela? Other Mommy says. Why would they do this to me? And Mommy and Daddo run the rest of the way, stabbing into the dark, screaming, sweating, stabbing, and— What’s that? Mommy says. The doorbell rang.
It rings again. Bela? Other Mommy says. Why? The doorbell rings again. Mommy and Daddo pull back from the second pantry. All dressed up, shaking at the end of the hall. Their knives look so small. Where is she? Daddo asks. We can’t lose our nerve, Mommy says. The doorbell rings again and the dogs are barking like mad. My bedroom door slams behind us and we all cry out at the sound. Daddo reaches into the second pantry again and finds the light and flips the switch and— It’s not in here, he says. He sounds crazy. They look crazy. I can’t look at them. I look up the hall. My bedroom door is closed. Other Mommy is in my bedroom. The doorbell rings again. Come on, Mommy says. We have to do this now. We can’t lose our nerve. But I think they did. They’re not yelling anymore. They’re not stabbing anymore. We all walk slowly to the top of the stairs, passing my bedroom door. Who the fuck is here? Daddo says. Was it in the bedroom the whole time? Mommy asks. Bela? Do you know? She gets to the stairs first and her hands are shaking and she’s walking down the stairs backward, I’m second, and Daddo is making sure I don’t fall. Can it just go from room to room like that? Mommy asks. Bela? The doorbell rings again and we’re halfway down the stairs and Mommy is yelling who is it and they’re both shaking and we get to the bottom and Mommy holds her knife to the stairs and Daddo opens the door and the dogs are growling and I see her outside on the front porch. Lois? Daddo says. Lois Anthony is here. Mommy goes to the door. What’s going on? Mommy says. They look so scared. Mommy and Daddo look so scared. O my God, Lois says. What have I interrupted? Daddo grabs my wrist and Mommy holds back the dogs and we all get out the door and onto the front porch where Lois is standing alone in the night.
What are you doing here? Mommy asks. Mommy looks so crazy. I can’t look at her. Lois starts to speak, but Mommy cuts her off. I didn’t mean to— Out with it, Lois! Mommy yells. What are you doing here? Lois looks to the knives. Looks to the house. I’m sorry to come unannounced, she says. But also... also I’m not. I’m not sorry at all. What’s going on? Daddo asks. Please hear me out, she says. It’s all I could think about. Since you left my house. All I could think... that I let you down. That I didn’t know what I was doing and I let you down. Lois? Mommy says. What the fuck are you doing here? Hear me out, Lois says. Please. We st ep farther out onto the lawn. Mommy and Daddo still hold their knives. I learned, Lois says. Learned what? Daddo asks. I learned how to get rid of the thing in your house. O, fuck, Mommy says. Are you fucking kidding me? Lois looks to the knives in Mommy and Daddo’s hands. You can’t hurt it like that, she says. And you can’t talk to it. You can’t tell it to leave. What you have is so much more serious than anything me and my circle could’ve imagined. The dogs still growl inside. How? Daddo says. How, Lois? How do we do it then? As maybe you can see, you caught us at a real piqued moment. Then, like he’s realizing it right now, Holy shit, he says. We tried to stab it. Holy shit. A neighbor is out on her porch now, watching. You need to get rid of what it wants, Lois says. What does that mean? Mommy asks. It won’t leave till it has what it wants. Okay, but what does that mean? No more hippie-speak! We’re past all that! Lois looks at me. And it feels like the whole world is looking at me with her. It wants Bela, she says. Okay, Mommy says, you can leave now. Now. And it won’t leave until it has her. She has tears in her eyes.
But she looks strong. Leave, Mommy says. But she sounds tired. Like she used all her bravery upstairs. Like Mommy and Daddo used all their bravery and now they’re just people with small knives. You have to make Bela less appealing, Lois says. Less appealing to it. Mommy and Daddo lower their knives. You have to make Bela less appetizing to whatever is inside your house. I don’t... Daddo starts to say. Come with me, Lois says. Let’s go somewhere and talk. Somewhere to clear our heads. Somewhere we feel more alone. She looks to the house like it can hear us. Mommy laughs but it’s not the funny way, it’s sharp. It follows us, Lois. In case you didn’t know. No matter where we go. We’re at our end, Daddo says. But he looks like maybe he doesn’t feel it’s the end. I understand, Lois says. I swear I do. But if you can’t get rid of it, that means it’s always present. And if it’s always here, then why not give me an hour? One hour to hear me out. She looks at me again. I’m sorry, Bela, she says. Sorry for underestimating what you were going through in this house. Mommy and Daddo are breathing hard. They’re sweating. The dogs are quieter now. Lois says, I know you’re at your wits’ end. I know you feel like you’re out of options. But I’m coming to you with a clear head. Clearer than I’ve ever had before. Daddo looks to Mommy, and Mommy sounds like she’s about to tell Lois Anthony to leave again. She breathes in the way someone does when they’re about to yell. But she doesn’t do that. All right, Mommy says. All right, Lois. Tell us what you learned. Lois watches Mommy a second before taking a st ep back. Like she’s worried what Mommy will do when she says what she has to say. I need you to let this sink in before you respond, Lois says. Lois, Daddo says. Come on. Lois breathes de ep, slow. The thing in your house is attracted to Bela’s innocence. We have to take that innocence away.